


Feeling Human

by temperedGraphomaniac



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Post-Scratch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-05-11
Updated: 2012-05-16
Packaged: 2017-11-05 04:49:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/402605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/temperedGraphomaniac/pseuds/temperedGraphomaniac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard being the only sixteen year old girl left on Earth. It's hard, and no one understands.</p><p>You remember being young, and not knowing how alone you were. You remember being young, and finding friends, and living words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hues of Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Okay guys, I was having a conversation with one of my favorite RP buddies over on cel3stial, and I was telling her all of these headcanons I have for Roxy and her upbringing, and how she met all of her friends and all this fun stuff. I started writing up a ton of one-shots, and then realized that there were ways I could piece them all together, and why not start with posting them here?
> 
> Right now I figured there's no harm in posting a quick intro. A memory that is entirely unsupported factually but I thought was cute and Roxy-esque and can be a good lead up to what I have written/planned so far.
> 
> I currently don't have anyone editing these other than myself, so if you want to take up that job, let me know! <3 
> 
> I hope y'all like this as much as everyone seemed to like my little Gamzee bit earlier. Maybe even more, since it's supposed to be longer!?

_It's hard being the only sixteen year old girl left on Earth. It's hard, and no one understands._

You remember being young, and not even realizing how different you were until the day you first left your building. The carapaces, as you now know them as, never really told you to stay inside. So naturally, you stayed inside as much as possible. If they never left, and you weren't challenged not to, why would you? It was never even an idea that crossed your mind.

The sun was bright, different from how it always looked when it spilled through the windows of your room. There, it was simply a gentle white glow, waking you up at appropriate times, alerting you of what time of the year it was. Outside... Outside you could touch it. In some places it filled you much like it filled your window panes and made every cell in your oh-so-pink body tingle and jump with warmth.

 _No wonder plants need this to survive,_ you thought. While the porch was always nice, there was no comparison to the way damp, chilly, _living_ grass felt as it slipped beneath your toes in the thin patch of earth between your building and the next. Once your feet could go no farther in the small strip of slight green, you looked up. It was painful, that bright sun, and the sky was a sweet shade of blue you wish you could see more often. The water surrounding was scary as ever, enclosing, dark and loud. A hue of blue that was nothing like this glorious sky. But your building? It was exciting and plain all at the same time. There was an undeniable need to feel it  _from the outside._ So you did. You walked up to it and ran your hands over it. You reached your hands up to a white-washed cement ledge just over your head, barely four feet off the ground, and your tiny fingers clutched to it, while your upper arms shoved with all the might any eighth year old could muster. Your toes hit the side of the building where your waist was recently leveled; in a matter of moments you were standing on a rough dome, and could see the very top of your home. This had to be the coolest thing ever! A red hot stream of adrenaline flooded through your blood, and suddenly you were entirely eighth years old and having more fun than you ever imagined and  _wow I bet I can jump to that other dome_ so you started laughing and hopping in place and then you clapped your hands together and started to run. But before you could even try to jump, your soft, uncalloused heels slipped on the smooth round surface, and you skidded down and hit the grass. 

Burns from the friction against your skin made you especially pink: all the way from the soles of your feet, up your calves, and on your elbows and even your hands where you braced your fall. It was confusing, and you weren't sure what to do. You only knew it hurt. Soon, or maybe later, you had no true perception of time, a carapace had come over, clothed in the usual ragged garb, with dampened rags that she (he?) wrapped about your skin. That had hurt worse, the worn-down material stinging ferociously. She jumped back, eyes confused, before backing away. 

When they didn't know how to care for something so small, you started to read. When you started to read, you learned about humans, and about Betty Crocker, and the batterwitch, and everything you never knew you were supposed to learn. You found journals left by a great Rose Lalonde, who found bravely and determined against the tyrannical troll leader; you delved into stories about her truest friend and ally, Dave Strider. 

Then and there, you decided to find the others.

More books waited in every place you looked. You read and read until you ran out of books to read about history, and found books on science, then math, and computers, and eventually... Books she wrote, herself. There were often notes in the margins: things that should have been mentioned, definitions of terms, references to other books where certain references were explained. After the thrilling quest of Calmasis stored itself in your packed head, new adventures had to be made. When you turned eleven, two years later, you got a computer working in a room that was officially deemed your own. There was another journal on one of the shelves, with instructions on how to get food in case of certain emergency situations and what the internet was. Everything was from her, it was all so caring.

Before you knew it, she was no longer just a valiant historical figure anymore. The words in her books were for you, just you, to protect and help _you_.

Rose Lalonde was Mom, so obviously you were a Lalonde as well.

 


	2. To The Light Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You get older, and play a few games.
> 
> But mostly you are just lonely, and try really hard to change that.

_Ping_

_“Hey Roxanne.”_

_Ping_

_“I know you're there.”_

_Ping_

_“We are literally the only people in the world there is no way you can run avoid me for long. I'll find you eventually.”_

 

When you first found Dirk, it was a long time after you read Mom's journals. And nothing like you hoped or expected. Reading her embellished purple script, you formed this image of getting in touch with the anticipated descendent of Dave Strider, and he (or she, maybe it was another girl, that would be really nice) would tell you all about his friends and neighbors, and there would be this huge gathering of more humans; real live human beings like you, that could maybe teach you how to knit better or what kinds of foods you can make out of pumpkins.

Motivation struck, and you got straight to work. There were parts to find, objects to grab from varying blocks of space, and slime to mess with. There was internet to scour, and as always, more books to read.

You knew the story of Calmasis backwards and forwards and probably even sideways. And surely everyone else knew them too; it was too good of a tale not to know. Sometimes you would put on a cloak and run around in the lab pretending to fight off trolls and villians and the mean old batterwitch. It always ends the same way: the end of a long path is reached, monsters fallen behind you, and there are friends waiting. There is a boy with blonde hair like yours, and tanned one with a huge smile, and of course another girl. One who knows how to cook. Especially good things that you can't find supplies for, like pastries and cakes. Because, really, where's a girl supposed to get milk and eggs within a carapace complex?

There was a time when your games almost went to far. While it, in time, led to the meeting of Dirk, and establishing the timeline connections with Jane and Jake, at first it just made you acutely aware of how really alone you were. It was shortly after a self-proclaimed twelfth birthday, and your wicked cool magicks had just obliterated a giant mutant cat invading your island. The government was after you then, because you were like twelve and didn't understand that islands with giant mutant cats and magicks probably didn't even have governments, so you dove into a pothole on the boxy porch of your house. You fell for what seemed like forever; halfway down the hole, it dawned on you that you realized you had never been down the pothole before. Where were you going? Were you even going anywhere?

Panic sunk into your system, and your hair flew in your face and choked you and you could have sworn you were about to die and then you-

-hit cold metal with your shoulder and knee, then your whole body. 

You were scared for a few minutes, unsure if your arms and legs still even worked. The impact had made a noise that reverberated from side to side of the chamber you were now at the base of. 

Most things in you life, you had begun to recognize as cold, lonely, and hard.

This chamber was the worst of them all, so far. 

Number one on your list of cold, lonely, and hard spaces had a small ladder that reached up to the top of the manhole, into the light. It also had a door, with no handle. Your petite fingers brushed along the seam, shaking with anxiety. 

_Vvsht._

It slid open, revealing a floor of florescent green cubes. 

“H...Hello?” you called out to the wide open space in front of you. There was no visible end to the room, or chamber, or whatever it was meant to be called. Not even your own echoes welcomed you.

On one side of the green cubed floor, there was a large screen, divided in four. Beneath it were two buttons, on either side of a keyboard; a bulbous blue circle sat on the floor in front of the giant mechanism. Upon closer examination, you took note of sets of miscellaneous tubes and pods, all connected with thick metal piping to the larger-than-life screen. 

_Cih-tack._

A loud click came from below your feet, and you looked down at the step you had taken onto the blue orb on the floor. Another click, and the screen above had powered up; the quadrants were all gray and white and fuzzy. They looked... alive.

The keyboard had you curious. Was it used for talking? Command prompts? You had read about command prompts in a book on computers. They were supposedly used to tell machines to do what you wanted them to do. 

One of the buttons looked like an arrow, which made you think of telling someone to “Go! Do it now!” The thought of controlling a machine like your own personal... what was the word?

“Armada...” you whispered to yourself, feeling the sides of your lips turn up in a smile. 

Tenatively, you move your hands over the keys, pressing in each button with your pointer finger to spell out “=> SEND REINFORCEMENTS.”

It was a fun game, and you wrapped your hands around themselves in anticipation of what the machine would do. Starting off the prompt with the arrow seemed right, like you were demanding the strange machine to do what you had asked.

“ERROR: INVALID COMMAND.”

You frowned, both inwardly and outwardly, instead typing “=> REVIVE KITTENS,” only, your finger slipped, still shaking from the adrenaline of this new, scary place. Instead, you added an extra little symbol to the prompt. What it was called, you had forgotten; it related to mathematics, at least.

“==> REVIVE KITTENS” appeared in a yellow-bordered box on one of the quadrants, before showing the image of a black cat in a suit.   


Wait

 

What?

 

Why was that cat wearing a suit? Cats do not wear suits. That is just silly. Although... it was adorable. One of the other buttons, a larger one on the right-hand side of the keyboard, had an image similar to that of a gray pad by the tubes on it. Figuring there wasn't much harm you could really do, you pressed the button, and watched as the cat appeared on the small platform.

Hold up, one more time.

 

_It just appeared there? Did I just... create a cat?_ The power you felt was incredible. Maybe the games weren't just games, after all. Maybe you were really magic! 

The mere thought sent shivers down through your bones, and you clapped to yourself in joy.

“That must be why I'm the only one left!” you recall yelling to the empty chamber.

However, when you looked back to the platform, the cat had turned into a small mound of green sludge. A sucking noise was faintly audible as the sludge was absorbed into the platform itself, and into one of the tubes. Outraged, you hit the button again, and again, watching more black cats turn to goop before your eyes.  _Why did it stop working???_

You felt immensely alone with the leftover mess of four non-cats sat in glass pods in front of you. Crossing your legs, you sat down in front of the cold, lonely, and hard disappointment. 

_Fwak!_

Your small fist fell, one more time, on the square button, and all of the sludge drained from the pods.

“Great. I don't even get to keep the mistakes!” your screams flew out into the air.

One last angry impulse caused you to type out “==> LET ME KEEP ANYTHING,” slamming down the 'enter' key and storming away. 

You paced back and forth for a while, not really looking at anything or anywhere. Simply upset. Merely frustrated. Only lonesome. 

“It's just not FAIR!” you screeched. Except, this time, a screech returned itself.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay but seriously, I plan on bringing in some Roxy♥Jane in soon, and definitely some Roxy/Dirk Biffleshipping. 
> 
> Comment, suggest, critique, et cetera as you please!!! (please)


End file.
